Seven Roads to Hell

[Pak40]

I just finished this gripping autobiographical account by Donald Burgett. He was in A Co., 506 Regiment of 101st Airborne (same regiment as Ambrose's "Band of Brothers"). There are some increadible details about the battles for Noville and Bastogne.

This book ranks up there with Company Commander, Panzer Commander and any other 1st person account in WWII. A must read for anyone interested in what it was like to fight on the front lines.

[Morte Rouge]

Great. I picked it up but haven't had the chance to read it yet. Just started Steel Inferno which is quite good.

[Mike D]

Just finishing Steel Inferno. Excellent book. Highly recommended.

Mike D

aka Mikester

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Finished reading Ten Days to Destiny, battle of Crete. Originally I thought that General Student was wrong in attacking multiple points at once. I thought he should have concentrated all his forces at one point. However, if he did that and the Allies realized that there was no attack from other directions, the Allies could have shifted units to focus on the point of attack. This is assuming the Allies would risk weakening defences elsewhere. No one can predict wether the enemy will fight cautiously or take risks so I can't say any plan is better than another. It all depends on if the enemy risks attacking when you are vulnerable.

[Los]

I too just got done reading "Ten Days to Destiny, Battle of Crete" which I enjoyed. (Thanks John for turning me on to that book!) For one thing it's just about the only book on the subject that covers the Greek point of view in any depth since as is typical for much English (meaning British or Commonwealth) based officail history: if it wasn't done by a commonwealth unit then why acknowledge the wogs at all? It was interesting that the Greek units were the ones that basically allowed the Commonwealth to get away but received no consideration in the evacuation.

The minor annoyance in the book is the author's treatment of the Germans. He goes on for pages on end about various minor allied firefights and the germans attacks are aleways being "annihlated" or sent back with heavy losses at the point of the bayonet. We get these heroics in detail but when the Germans do something it's just a "They eventually secured village x". I would have liked to see the same kind of detailed occasionally put into the German POV as it was on the allied side.

But then again lots of historical books are like that. STill, it's a good informative read with lots of detail on little know facts such as how the Allies gathered their intel on the invasion etc etc.

NOTE: This is not to say that there isn't some good detail about the German operations in the book, but you sort of have to read between the lines to realize that despite being totally outnumbered for the whole operation, being low on food water, and everything else, small bands of germans fought on and eventually took that island.

I would have liked to havve seen explained what kind of decisions and action went into taking this or that house of position for ther German side as it covers he allied side.

Los

[This message has been edited by Los (edited 08-10-99).]

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Wow that was fast.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>He goes on for pages on end about various minor allied firefights and the germans attacks are aleways being "annihlated" or sent back with heavy losses at the point of the bayonet. We get these heroics in detail but when the Germans do something it's just a "They eventually secured village x". <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are right. I noticed that too. Could be that when the Germans secured village x, there were not too many folks left to talk about it.

It certainly would be interesting to read the view from the other side down at the tactical level. The Germans had to fight against the hot weather, unknown terrain, bad scatters. Those paras hauled some ass. But oh did they get close to being cut completely from reinforcements from the mountain troops.

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

PS when CM2/3 goes to Crete, you can be sure those airports will be secured. I'll commit the reserve group early to do it. But perhaps manouvers of that scale are not on CM's level of scale.

The Germans had air superiority and can ferociously bomb the hell out of the defenders. The question is , how long can Hitler wait before losses get too high and he calls the whole deal off? Hitler was gearing up for Barbarossa and this sideshow was costing time. How long would he wait and how much resources was he willing to commit?

[This message has been edited by John Maragoudakis (edited 08-11-99).]

[Los]

I thought one of the most incredible and tragic passages in the book is when that Greek farmer hears a shot and sees his son goes down. He hears another shot and then his wife goes down. He grabs a sickle runs out side and here's the German coming down in his parachute, pistol in hand. The German aims at him but a gust of wind tugs him backwards (still in his harness) so the guy runs up and gives him a sickle enema. He turns around and there's a whole stick of paras landing on and around his house. He runs around and kills like 8 of them. Amazing stuff.

I believe he later turned himself in for execution rather than allow a bunch of innocents to be killed.

Los

[Fionn]

I have an early 1920s book by a British author about the Great War. It's part of a series in which each book covers one year of the war. This book covers 1917 and was found in a school book sale about 10 years ago for 20p .

Anyways its a great read if only to see how the brave tommies fight through every form of horrific ordeal (all described in detail) and finally gain their objectives and hold on tenaciously and then compare this detail with the "but ten hours later the boche retook the village" coverage which comes later .

Since eveery book is written with national bias I place great importance on primary source evidence myself since it allows the reader to make their own judgements about what happened. All too few books give this sort of coverage though.